November 8, 2008

He should forget entirely about reelection and focus solely on helping the nation at a critical time. He should dismiss the people who helped him win the election and bring in people who are above politics and above party. He should surround himself with statesmen and economists, businesspeople and leaders. In some ways it would be beneficial if our presidency consisted of only one term. That way the President would think about his legacy and the future of the country rather than reelection and partisanship....

In his second term, President Clinton made an effort to govern more from the center than from the extreme wing of his party, and by doing so, found greater support and greater political success. Perhaps it's a paradox, the less political the agenda, the more political success one enjoys. But now is not the time for partisanship opportunism.

The unions have helped Barack Obama. They will hope to be paid back. I'm particularly concerned that organized labor would call on Barack Obama to pass the card check program. This removes from American workers the right to the secret ballot in deciding whether or not to accept a union. This legislation would do more to harm America's long-term competitiveness than almost anything I can imagine. It would be a partisan payback for organized labor but it would come with devastating consequences for the nation.

There's something off about this guy, maybe it's just me. What he is saying to Obama is "fire everybody who made you president, stiff all the interest groups who supported you and govern as if you were me."

Three days after Obama trounced the candidate Romney campaigned for.

I mean, yeah, I kind of expect Obama's first year to be at least somewhat less partisan than normal because of the economic situation. But this takes it to an absurd level.

And the citation of Clinton's second term? His second term was mostly a waste because of hyperpartisanship, caused by the need to circle the wagons in the wake of Lewinsky. We were all just lucky the economy was running like a freight train in those years. But it was also four years of neglect and mismanagement of the Islamicist threat.

You want to point to Clinton's good years? 1995-96. His second best years were the two years before that. His final year wasn't bad. But 97-99 was the ultimate squandering of a mandate.

"He should dismiss the people who helped him win the election and bring in people who are above politics and above party.

Translation: Or you could hire me.

"He should surround himself with statesmen and economists, businesspeople and leaders."

Translation: Really, Barry...I need work.

"In some ways it would be beneficial if our presidency consisted of only one term. That way the President would think about his legacy and the future of the country rather than reelection and partisanship...."

Translation: If you don't hire me, I'm going to run against you, so you betta be scared....

I suppose it all depends if Obama was stiffing all the special interest groups who got him elected or if he's satisfying all the people who really did get him elected because they were trusting that he wouldn't do anything that he said he'd do.

I despise Romney. He is the worst of the worst. I voted for him in Mass. He was someone who I liked very much when he ran for governor. When he ran for president he was completely a different person.

Also, his "east coast elite" comments at the convention were precious.

One of my favorite things about NYC is dining and take out options. Tonight I have decided on crepes. I am going to be having an Amelie crepe with nutella, banana and roasted almonds. My drink will be a Pomegranat and Goji Berry Smoothie with green tea, lemon, strawberries and crush ice.

"When asked to choose among some of the GOP's top names for their choice for the party's 2012 presidential nominee, 64% say Palin. The next closest contenders are two former governors and unsuccessful challengers for the presidential nomination this year -- Mike Huckabee of Arkansas with 12% support and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts with 11%."

(The only one who can take Obama down is Palin. She's the biggest threat to them, and that's why she has so many attacks against her. Romney cannot take down a Black man. But, Palin can easily mop the floor with anyone in her path, and that's what it's gonna take in 2012)

His second term was mostly a waste because of hyperpartisanship, caused by the need to circle the wagons in the wake of Lewinsky. We were all just lucky the economy was running like a freight train in those years. But it was also four years of neglect and mismanagement of the Islamicist threat.

I think is where right wingers completely lost their minds and have never recovered. ATF Bootjacks, Waco, Ruby Ridge, The Clinton Chronicles. Good times!

I can think of younger days when living for my lifeWas everything a man could want to do.I could never see tomorrow, but I was never told about the sorrow.

And how can you mend a broken heart? How can you stop the rain from falling down? How can you stop the sun from shining? What makes the world go round? How can you mend a this broken man? How can a loser ever win? Please help me mend my broken heart and let me be relevant again.(How can you mend a Broken Heart, Mitt Romney)

"I -heart- Mitt Romney", so I (Prof. Althouse) proceeded to vote for...the anti-Romney, the one candidate most diametrically opposed to all of Romney's positions that I could find in either party. Twice -- once in the primaries, against all other Democrats, and then once in the general.

And McCain was incoherent. Hmmmph.

What do Obama and Romney have in common, that would cause a supporter of one to also support the other? They're both fairly young, compared to the other candidates; they're both men; they're probably the only two men in the race that could be called physically attractive; they're both in good shape; and they both have nice voices.

Maybe Ann would like to start a "Draft Brad Pitt in 2012" movement now.

I believe the point might be that if Obama were to concentrate on actually being the President of the United States (instead of immediately running for a second term) and if governed in the best interests of the people, then re-election would be more likely to happen.

I'm particularly concerned that organized labor would call on Barack Obama to pass the card check program. This removes from American workers the right to the secret ballot in deciding whether or not to accept a union. This legislation would do more to harm America's long-term competitiveness than almost anything I can imagine.

Mitt is exactly right. By allowing unions to coerce participation by the unwilling through NON SECRET ballots, we as a company will lose even more manufacturing jobs to overseas and other businesses will become uncompetitive driving up costs for consumers all across the board.

But....hey....who cares? Right? Obama has to pay back the unions who put him in power. Public be damned

I agree with Romney that the country would be much better off if Obama followed Mitt's advice. But I can't imagine Obama actually doing it. The unions expect to be paid off. This means the ordinary workers are going to take it up the ass.

Mitt's right about one thing. The card check/EFCA legislation is a huge shitstorm waiting to happen. If McCain had flogged it a little bit during his campaign, it might have helped him out. I couldn't believe that it wasn't even an issue, but maybe he felt there was nothing to be gained by appearing to be against the supposed interests of "Joe the Whatever". If EFCA passes, and Obama has vowed to sign it, then prepare for unions to spring to new life. And employers will be powerless to even have a dialogue with their employees on the topic. They may not even know they've been unionized until it's already happened.

I just love this. It is so full of hypocracy that it makes me barf. It could also read:

"Now that we have had a real whipping in the election and the democrats pretty much run the show, hey Mr. Obama, forget about all the shit the GOP majority through at the democrats for 8 years - all the petty stuff that ol' Tom Delay use to pull like shutting off electricity in democrat hearings - ya' know that stuff that was all about exclusion....Yes PLEASE Mr. Obama, move to the right cause its the good thing to do (for us) and give the GOP a voice (when they deserve nothing short of a slow boat to China).

Yes it would be nice to be one big happy family and perhaps it is best but frankly the GOP can stand out in the rain for all I care.

If you follow Althouse's link to Fortune Magazine, Romney's interview is more extensive and it is very good.

Couldn't help but think:

He should forget entirely about reelection and focus solely on helping the nation at a critical time. He should dismiss the people who helped him win the election and bring in people who are above politics and above party. He should surround himself with statesmen and economists, businesspeople and leaders.

The middle sentence is dumb and may well merit Romney getting shit later about dismissing those who help him (though is loyalty track to subordinates is quite good) the other lines are quite good. He should not think about 2012 but show he is putting the nation #1.The final line is right - surround Obama with the best. I'd add he also needs the best military and the best union people helping.

I can imagine Palin's advice:

"Well yeh know, we got a little crisis and the last thing we need are those elitist kinda folks that don't speak for the real America. We need Joe the plumber, Sally the fast food waitress holding a 600 big one mortgage on a 400 big one house knowin' best what tah do, you betcha.. You need Fred the high school dropout whose deliverin' those newspapers. Sparkles the Prostitute. Ignook the salmon gutter..."

Paul Zrimsek said... He should forget entirely about reelection

Why would any sensible person read past this point?

Someone that reads history and notes that is exactly how Lincoln, FDR, Churchill did on the "fierce urgency of the here and now" in crisis.

Romneys list of the major thimgs that have to be fixed if America is ever to come back are good ones, as is his noting that the domestic auto industry - 200,000 jobs and 450,000 pensions - is now in life support and may or may not die.

Your guy lost. Your party lost. Live with it. If the only thing you have to pin on the president elect is that he had the financial support of millions of people then please run that up the flagpole of if McCain tried the same thing he would have, like he did in the primaries, go broke.

In some ways it would be beneficial if our presidency consisted of only one term.

I've long argued for amending the Constitution to make the Presidency one six-year term, to be extended by a second of four years only under the most extraordinary of circumstances and by a combination of popular landslide referendum and Senate supermajority. (You wouldn't want to kick out a successful president in the middle of a war, e.g.)

What gave me this notion was being sickened by the perpetual campaign, starting with Bill Clinton's.

Romney is transparently establishment in his thinking. Of course the inside the beltway crowd, be it the Washington beltway or the Boston beltway or the Albany beltway, wants the two parties to join in a permanent unbreakable ruling duopoly. The Demopublican-Republicratic Party forever, living the sweet inside the buttercup life on the backs of the dumb, ever connable peasantry, us.

Bad as that formula is it would be a considerable improvement over the Obama-brand marxist racist thuggery about to befall us.

"I know I'm naive, but . . if there really is a right to privacy in the constitution, why doesn't it apply to one's vote whether or not to join a union?"

Why not? Its a living document and can evolve in any direction a judge wants it to. OTOH, conceivably, some Liberal Judge could find the secret union ballot unconstitutional because of blah, blah, blah.

Once the "living constitution" gets up and goes for a walk who knows where it will end up.

hdhouse said... ohhh yaaa Harwood...ya'betcha. Your guy lost. Your party lost. Live with it. If the only thing you have to pin on the president elect is that he had the financial support of millions of people ....---Let us count your errors:

1. McCain wasn't my guy. I didn't vote for him.

2. My party didn't lose. I am not registered as a Republican and did not contribute one penny to the GOP.

3. My post wasn't about contributors. It was about Obama's promising to do something and then breaking his promise. The man is dishonorable, regardless of how many millions contributed to him or voted for him.

The opposition to "card check" supports the universal principle that voting is a private act, to be done secretly.

What are you, kynefski? Grad student? Barista? Probably. So you've never had a union heavy puncture your tires or threaten to beat your ass?

That shit never happens, though. Right?

Moreover, unions kill productivity for absolutely nominal -- if even nominal -- gains for workers. Yeah, man, if only the guys down at the plant could make more money and have better insurance for doing less work, that would save GM for sure.

The simple fact is that card check threatens the decades-long corrosion of worker organization. The people who oppose it don't give a damn about democracy.

If a workplace has a need for a union... if workers are ill-treated and ill-paid... a secret ballot will bring in a union. Worker organization is corroding because it was *successful*. But like all successful organizations, they can't afford to admit they've won, because if they win they no longer have purpose. At this point an organization no longer exists for the cause it was created to address, but for it's own existence.

A union is not such a universal good that it must be artificially propped up by enforcing a system designed specifically and purposefully to allow the intimidation of workers by the union!

You can pretend all you like that those opposing a card check don't care about democracy but a card check is *designed* to promote a union beyond the support that union can get through legitimate means by allowing the intimidation of workers who have different opinions on the need or utility of a union.

Yes, easily. Allow people to have it as an option in places where the majority wants it there. Allow people to prohibit it in places where the majority wants that. Self-government is a remarkably simple and easily-implemented concept. Strange, that so many fear it.

The simple fact is that card check threatens the decades-long corrosion of worker organization. The people who oppose it don't give a damn about democracy.

Here's an exercise. Explain how card check would end the corrosion of worker organization -- without sounding like you're condoning thuggery.

It can't be done.

If you want to be Pollyanna and assume there will be no intimidation to get people to sign the cards, then you still haven't added a single right to the workers that they don't have already. Their vote would count just the same if they did it behind a curtain or if they did it at the front door of their home while two big guys watch.

The card check supporters also argue that the rules now are too stringent in terms of time spans for elections, and what employers can say and when to the workers.

Fine. All of that can be addressed -- without changing the secret ballot.

The unions know what they're getting with card check -- the power to force workers to join unions involuntarily through intimidation. You on the left -- there is no way to perfume that particular skunk so it sounds like democracy or freedom.

Just face it. The honest truth is, you know card check is fascistic, but you don't care because your moral compass has been replaced by a dollar sign. You've sold out the workers you're supposed to represent to a cadre of wealthy labor bureaucrats and their PACs.

Advising a politician to ignore politics - that is easy when you are sitting at home counting your millions.

I'm not certain why the GOP hates blue collar workers, but the blue collar workers understand, and the backlash is going to be vicious.

Bush used the Department of Labor to try to eliminate labor unions, and guess what, payback is coming.(there are a lot of problems with unions, but shipping jobs to China is not exactly working out so well)

amba said..."I know I'm naive, but . . if there really is a right to privacy in the constitution, why doesn't it apply to one's vote whether or not to join a union?"

The right of privacy applies only to fundamental liberties. There's a step that the courts go through, identifying those liberties, which involve only matters that are seen as especially personal to the individual and like other things that have already been put in that category, with marital sex being the paradigm.

Ironically, Romney ask Obama to rise above politics and implies that he should govern from the middle, and then takes a completely partisan position on the AFCA. Instead of discussing the complexities of this issue, admitting that employers use pressure and delay tactics in secret ballot elections, while pointing out the a card check is not the most accurate way to find out employees' feelings about unions, Romney pretends this is as simply protecting employee choice. That's just politics as usual. Anybody interested in really thinking about this issue should check out this article: http://nytimes.com/2008/11/09/us/politics/09labor.html

In some ways it would be beneficial if our presidency consisted of only one term. That way the President would think about his legacy and the future of the country rather than reelection and partisanship

Hmm. Counter-example: South Korea. President is limited to a single term, but that hasn't prevented the Presidency from being dominated by fools as weasels for the past decade. Kim Dae Jung was bad; Noh Moo-hyun was worse (got impeached for illegal partisan electioneering). I like Lee Myung-Bak (comparatively), but he's not, objectively, any better than his predecessors on the narrow partisanship issue; I just like the Hannaradang better than Uri.